Kristyn Wong-Tam and Denzil Minnan-Wong argue over how to turn Yonge into New York

Yonge Street retailers are complaining that the area has too much foot traffic—which sounds a little nuts, but their reasoning is that any would-be leisurely shoppers get caught in the stampeding crowd and are whisked right by. Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam thinks reducing the number of car lanes on Yonge and widening the pedestrian area using business-sponsored planters would liven up the street (and make it more like New York), and she has applied to try out the scheme from mid-August to mid-September for the Celebrate Yonge festival. Denzil Minnan-Wong, chair of the city’s public works committee, has a totally different vision: convert Yonge and Bay to one-way streets south of Bloor to improve traffic flow and create space for cyclists—which would also, oddly enough, make Yonge more like New York. Since this is the third time Minnan-Wong has looked into fixing up Wong-Tam’s ’hood (he asked the city to look into the Yonge-Dundas pedestrian scramble without consulting her and led the fight to remove the Jarvis bike lanes, also in her ward), we’re bracing for a turf war between two three-named councillors. [Globe and Mail]

I gotta say, Minnan-Wong’s plan doesn’t seem that bad. It should appeal to all sides. I say those on the left should pick their battles. Fighting over this (as well as the plan to lower the speed limits of city streets) will only serve to engage those who believe there’s a “war on the car.” Let’s throw them a few bones, and keep the next election from being another Ford fiasco.

The key difference is that K W-T’s proposal has a year of consultation and study behind it whereas D M-W’s came to him in a dream the other night and has…..nothing behind it.

Changing Bay and Yonge to one-way streets *may* be an excellent idea, but you’d need to do a lot of traffic analysis first to see how it would affect the overall traffic patterns of downtown. Adelaide and Richmond essentially operate like downtown highways; is that what we want Yonge and Bay to be?

KWT’s idea – to test out reducing car lanes in a pilot project – is exactly the right approach.

As a retailer who owns a large store in the downtown core that contributes taxes and jobs to the economy, I want to say that people in cars who come to the city’s downtown spend money on large ticket items. People on bikes do not. If the city core is going to be a car unfriendly zone then businesses that rely on customers who drive in will relocate or close. Minnan-Wong has the right idea.

I bet if you were to ask New Yorkers which area of the city they would rather walk along, broadway or somewhere like Greenwich village they’d probably prefer the latter. I don’t want my city to turn into that part of New York.

Now, it may be true that your particular business is particularly dependent on customers that drive. But we should not sacrifice all the other businesses that would benefit from more pedestrian and cycle traffic at the expense of the few businesses that would benefit more from car visitors. There needs to be a compromise, and a place like Yonge, accessible by streetcar, subway, and by foot for all those who live in the condos and apartment buildings in the area, it may be more beneficial to sacrifice some driving customers for those who walk/bike/take transit.